Festive fun with Uist’s new Trees for Hope trail

The North Uist Community Council (NUCC) enquired whether funding would be available to “erect a few trees around the area”.

Just a few short weeks later, and they’ve uploaded their completed Trees for Hope Trail on Google maps and are inviting everybody to take the approximately 90 minute drive around the trail to visit each of the 16 individually decorated trees.

The trees are located at: Lochmaddy Fire Station, Taigh Chearsabhagh, Hoebeg, Clachan Sands, Ahmore, Langass, Shoreline Ceramics, Clachan Church, Baleshare, Carinish Old Church, Kallin Harbour, Claddach Kirkibost Centre, Hougharry Road End, Bayhead Shop, Taigh Sgire Sholais, Griminish and Westford.

Boxes of tree decorations are also available at some of the sites in order that children can also participate by adding to a tree on their journey. Hand sanitiser is also available for visitors to use at these specific sites.

The map can be accessed online at: https://bit.ly/3qTbwyT.

The NUCC committee are eager for everyone to take selfies at each tree and either upload them to the site or email their photos to [email protected].

The tree map will hopefully be continuously updated and, by clicking on any tree on the map, the viewer can then enjoy the visitors’ photos.

Joan Ferguson of NUCC who initiated the idea, said: “North Uist Community Council are delighted to have received funding from the Western Isles Lottery to help spread a bit of festive cheer around the island. Please feel free to follow the Christmas Tree of Hope Trail and we welcome all selfies to let us know how popular the trail has been. #shinebrightscotland”

This project was no mean feat and necessitated many volunteers helping out.

The lighting of the trees, understandably, proved challenging and yet this was overcome despite the difficulties.

Both businesses and private households willingly offered power supplies to some trees and innovative solutions had to be found for others. This included the use of 240v batteries with the addition of inverters to reduce the excessive power outage to 12v.

Janet Paterson of the Western Isles Lottery Team said: “We are blown away with the result of this project which quickly escalated from just a seed of an idea and was completed in such a short time.

“We congratulate those involved and hope it inspires our other lottery sub-groups in each area across the Western Isles.

“As we keep emphasising however, it is the supporters of the Western Isles Lottery who made this possible by joining in. Each and every individual continues to help us raise valuable funding for their own community projects across the islands”.

To take part in the local lottery and help groups continue to make great improvements across the Isles, you can log onto: www.westernisleslottery.co.uk for more info.